


the stars, burning

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, M/M, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 14:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2071998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know I'm not mad about the whole Metatron thing, right? I mean, I know you can't hear – ” he makes a vague gesture at his head with the hand that isn't holding the bandages and holds Castiel's gaze, something in his expression that Castiel can't read.</p>
<p>“It's not like we had much opportunity to talk,” Castiel says, tersely.</p>
<p>Dean drops his gaze again. “Yeah,” he says, his voice rough, “I know.” He resumes bandaging Castiel's arm. “I'm sorry.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the stars, burning

 

A collection of coda pieces for 9.01, 9.03, 9.06, 9.09, 9.10, 9.18. See end of the fic for disclaimer. Beta provided by Celesma, all remaining mistakes are my own

 

This is a companion piece to [the deep too dark](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2071923) **  
  
  
1\. And all the birds fall out the sky in two by two's (and my teeth fall out of my head into the snow)  
  
** Feeling comes in gradually, pain, confusion, his hammering heart. The last one recedes slowly, the longer he sits in the man's car. Even the burning pain of where the skin on his right hand had been scraped away from when he'd thrown himself out of the route of the car isn't as overwhelming anymore.

It's not the familiar rumble of the Impala, not by a long shot, but being in the car calms him.

 

“So, where you headed?” the man asks him, shooting a quick glance at Castiel.

 

“The next place that has a phone.” The man chuckles at that, not unfriendly.

 

“Your wife?”

 

Castiel stares out the window, at the trees swishing by. It looks almost like where he'd first been, after purgatory. The road, the trees and then the Impala driving by.

 

“Not exactly,” he answers.

 

 

 

When they arrive at the next gas station, the man forces some money into Castiel's hand. He starts to refuse – the man has done enough already. But he doesn't have his cell phone anymore. The pay phone is the only option.

The blue plastic of the booth is stained and dusty, the black receiver probably dirtier than he can perceive but it isn't of import to him. His fingers punch the familiar number in almost without input from his brain. He doesn't have to wait long until there's a click in the line and a rough “Hello?” and things fall into place again.

 

Dean's voice on the other end is calming in a way that has nothing to do with what Dean is actually saying and everything to do with the low, rough timbre of his voice. The urgent way he asks if Castiel is ok, the sound of his breathing through the line.

 

“Didn't you hear me, man? I've been praying to you all night!” Dean sounds distressed, anxious. The fact that Castiel cannot hear him anymore through the ether, cannot find the grounding tether of his soul across the miles – it makes his chest heavy. He chases the confusing sensation away. He cannot focus on that now. Instead, he explains everything he knows about what happened, unable to keep the guilt out of his voice. Dean's voice, by contrast, becomes even more distressed.

 

“I'm _begging_ you, for once, look out for yourself!”

 

Castiel sighs, doesn't say anything for a long moment. He looks down at the dusty shoes he's wearing, then back up, across the parking lot, the trees. At the woman in the pickup truck who's been staring at him, without blinking or looking away once, from the moment he arrived here. On his shoulders, he feels a weight settle that has nothing to do with the pain that still lingers there from his fall. He straightens his back.

 

“I can't, Dean. This is my fault. I have to help them.”

 

“ _Dammit_ , Cas!” He almost smiles at that, but then he hears Dean curse under his breath and then, the distant sound of breaking glass. “ _They're here_ ,” Dean hisses. He sounds like he's running. Before Castiel has the chance to interrupt, he shouts, barely audible over the noise, “I gotta go. Cas, get your self-sacrificial ass to the bunker, _now_!” The sound of breaking glass again, louder. The line goes dead.

 

Castiel stares at the receiver for a long moment, a cold weight settling itself in his stomach. His hands are tingling with sweat. He doesn't even notice the man standing behind him, until he clears his throat, gesturing pointedly at the receiver Castiel still clutches in his hand. Castiel gives the receiver over to the man with a strange reluctance and steps away from the booth. When he turns towards the road, the woman in the pickup is still staring at him. No one else is around.

 

Castiel stops and returns her stare. The gravel under his feet crunches like something broken.

He opens the door on her side, an apology already on his tongue. He comes as far as “I am sorry. My friend, he needs – ” until she's on him, punches him so hard he staggers back a few steps, shocked. Iron floods his mouth, so much he has to spit some of it out in the dirt. He is convinced, for a moment, that his teeth will fall down to the earth along with it.  
  
“You are _corrupted_ ,” she hisses at him, fury and contempt twisting her mouth. She stares him down, her eyes piercing, accusatory. They are full of tears. “You are _lost_.”

 

She slams the door shut and drives off, tires screeching.

**  
  
  
2\. Green, broken glass ocean (you break me, slow motion)  
**

When he comes to, Dean is staring down at him with such an open, utterly vulnerable expression that, for a moment, Castiel has trouble realizing this is actually him.  
  
The room around them is completely destroyed. There is a body on the floor, Sam is slumped against the wall, his chest still heaving. He looks even more shocked and confused than Castiel feels. Dean is the only one standing, tense and unmoving amidst the wreckage around him. It's only been a few seconds, but already Dean has schooled his expression back to an almost unreadable mask, anger clear in his voice, his posture rigid. But although the danger has obviously passed, there is still fear in his eyes when he looks down at Castiel. Dean doesn't appear to be hurt, not physically, but it's there, somehow, in the way his jaw clenches when he demands “Never do that again,” the way his fingers twitch and curl against his sides. But Dean doesn't give him time to ask. He helps Sam back to his feet, making sure he isn't hurt, and then hovers at Castiel's side the whole walk to the Impala, glancing at him every few seconds. For all his commanding tone a few minutes back he is surprisingly silent now. Sam asks Castiel a few questions, how he's been, how he ended up here, until Dean cuts him with an annoyed “Slow down man, he's just been to the grave and back.”  
Sam shuts up with a guilty expression, murmuring an apology.  
  
Castiel shakes his head. He's tired, still a little stunned – but he feels calmer around them already. He settles back against the familiar leather of the Impala, looks over to Sam.  
  
“It's okay. I have, uh. I have missed the both of you, too.”  
  
From his place somewhat in the middle of the backseat, he can only see a part of Sam's face, but he catches the way he smiles softly, as if quietly amused by something. Dean, when Castiel looks over to him, seems kind of annoyed and tears his gaze away immediately when their eyes meet in the rearview mirror. His jaw clenched shut he stays silent, doesn't react when his brother shoots him a quick look.

Sam clears his throat.

 

“We missed you, too, Cas,” he says. His smile is genuine but the lightness of his tone sounds strained.

 

 

 

In the bunker, Dean is hovering again, his voice cheerful and his posture open, his smile radiating happiness as he forces some fresh clothes and a new phone into Castiel's hands, makes him something to eat, shows him the showers. The abrupt change in mood is a little disorienting, but Castiel cannot help but be grateful, cannot help feeling soothed by Dean's familiar mixture of bashfulness and pride as he shows him around.

 

It's a stark contrast to the desperation on his face only a few hours back, the way his eyes had looked wet and broken and frightened.

 

That's why, when only a short time later, Dean tells him that he can't stay, his expression pained and his words clipped when he explains – the angels, the risks – Castiel doesn't really listen to him. He hears the words, but they don't make sense. Except, they do.

 

Dean stares at him for another moment after he's finished, his eyes willing him to understand. His jaw works and constricts as if he's swallowing down something else, something that tries to claw out of his throat. Castiel could relate to that. His own throat suddenly feels raw and it hurts, like it's filled with pins and needles. He draws a breath, looks down at the table.

 

“I understand.”  
  
When he looks up again, Dean seems to see something in his expression that makes him abruptly look away. Dean gets up and makes a vague gesture towards the hallway without looking at Castiel, half turned away already.

 

“Come on, I'll show you your, uh. A room you can sleep in. I'll drive you to the, uh. I'll drive you in the morning.”

 

Castiel hesitates but gets up and follows after him in the end, too tired and shocked and confused to argue.  
  
  
  
When he wakes, the digital clock on the nightstand says 4:18 am. He blinks into the darkness, momentarily confused, before the memory of the last few hours comes back. He clicks on the light on the bedside table and sits up against the headboard. Situated on the wall across from him is an oil painting of a shoreline, a wooden desk stocked with a few books in one corner, something that looks like a coat rack in the other. It's neither Sam nor Dean's room but it looks tidy, looked after.

He is still tired. He could easily go back to sleep. Instead, he throws the covers off – they're soft, a bit too warm, a deep blue – and shuffles quietly out into the hallway.

 

Despite the late – or early – hour, there is light in the kitchen. He steps closer without making a sound, keeping himself in the shadows. It feels wrong but he does it anyway.

Dean has almost completely covered the kitchen table with various items – from his place in the dark hallway Castiel can make out a duffel bag, some clothes, various smaller things that seem to rate in value from relatively vital to completely random. Some of them are already packed, but the rest is still laid out, spread all over the surface. Dean doesn't do anything about them though, although it's obvious he's dragged everything in here in the first place. Instead, he's leaning against the kitchen counter, a bottle of bourbon at his left elbow, an almost empty glass at his right. He's staring down at the chaos with a thunderous expression, his shoulders a tense and angry line.

 

All the remaining warmth seems to get sucked out of Castiel as he stands there. A strange hurt spreads in his chest and he turns abruptly, returns to the room as quietly as he can, although anger tempts him to slam the door shut behind him.

 

He almost misses the sound of breaking glass from the kitchen a second before his door clicks shut.

 

 

 

He turns off the light and waits until, finally, almost an hour later, the door of Dean's room opens and shuts quietly. Another hour later, Castiel shuts the bunker door behind himself carefully, turns his back on it and starts walking. **  
**

**  
  
3\. So surprised you wanna dance with me now (i was getting used to life without you around)  
  
** He looks down, and it can't have been more than a second, but when he looks up again, his world comes to a grinding halt for a moment and then speeds up, spinning, way too fast.

Because there is Dean, beaming at him and smiling, like he's just found Castiel in purgatory all over again.

Castiel's knuckles grow white on the countertop and he makes no effort to conceal the bitterness in his voice when he speaks – and yet, he lets himself get dragged away by Dean in the end. Dean, who seems so overwhelmingly, genuinely happy to see him, who tugs at Castiel's arm and stands close, his green eyes bright and eager and as hard as ever to look away from.

 

Outside the shop, when they've almost reached Dean's car, Dean quickly turns around and embraces him. It only lasts a few seconds, maybe less, and then Dean squeezes his shoulders once, his cheek pressed against the side of Castiel's face. And then he let's go just as quickly, takes a few steps back, ducking his head.

Castiel hasn't moved the entire time. Dean doesn't address this though. “It's good to see you, Cas,” he says, again, and then he kind of just stands there, awkwardly, looking and not looking at Castiel.

“You too, Dean,” Castiel says into the silence.

Dean's mouths twists, he says, “Yeah,” without looking Castiel in the eye. “Come on, let's motor then.” He turns around, opens the passenger's side door and then holds it open expectantly. Castiel stares at him, frozen in his spot. Dean rolls his eyes, looks away and says with growing impatience, “Come on, princess, we don't have all day.” But he stays where he is until Castiel gets in the car, and only then does he close the door and move over to the driver's side.

 

**  
**

For a brief moment – the case, the fight, the near-death experience – it's Castiel and Dean again. Just Castiel and Dean. They fight so well together, it's almost like Castiel can still hear Dean's thoughts in his head, can still move faster than light.

It's only when Dean is carefully tending to Castiel's arm and the deep scratches on his hand that the reality of their situation comes back to him. Silently, he watches Dean's hands, his warm, tender fingers wrapping the bandages around his arm.

Once, Dean stops and ducks his head until he can look Castiel in the eyes.

“You know I'm not mad about the whole Metatron thing, right? I mean, I know you can't hear – ” he makes a vague gesture at his head with the hand that isn't holding the bandages and holds Castiel's gaze, something in his expression that Castiel can't read.

 

“It's not like we had much opportunity to talk,” Castiel says, tersely.

 

Dean drops his gaze again. “Yeah,” he says, his voice rough, “I know.” He resumes bandaging Castiel's arm. “I'm sorry.”  
  
Castiel is silent for a long moment. “You say that a lot lately,” he finally finds himself saying.

 

Dean snorts. “Yeah, well, I fuck up even more lately.” He's finished with the bandages, apparently satisfied with the results, and moves to turn away, his eyes closed off and distant again. He steps away and Castiel suddenly feels how cold it has become, how the mere proximity of Dean's body had held the chill at bay.

 

Dean, who is turned away from him, throwing stuff back into his duffel bag, and won't look him in the eye. **  
  
**

 

**  
4\. See you at the barricade babe (see you when the lights go low, joe)  
  
** He's on the run, and he's an angel – again.

 

“And you're okay with that?” Dean had asked. Soon after that, the mechanical voice had announced he was almost out of minutes. “Dammit Cas, charge up your damn – ” and then the line had gone dead.

 

Now, it's almost 9 pm and several miles between Castiel and that pay phone. He's at a Target, scanning the aisles for something to replace his dirtied and too recognizable clothing with. It's harder than it should be. Staying too long is a risk. Making the right choice, even here, seems important though.

The stolen grace inside him feels strange, the sensation in and of itself familiar, but, now, it also feels alien, almost uncomfortable at times. The possibility that this is just his conscience speaking is there, too. The grace is a coldly burning thing, and yet, when he settles for a trenchcoat and a simple white dress shirt, what's guiding him in his decision feels very human indeed.

 

At the next store, he gets a new phone. He makes sure to get one with Wifi capabilities and a camera. As soon as he's out, he puts Dean's number on speed dial, texting him while he walks. It doesn't seem like he's being followed but he has been wrong before.

 

**dean it's me. this is my new number.** **  
  
**He puts the phone back in his pocket, already scanning the area for anything that looks like a reliable vehicle nobody will miss too much.

 

It's getting darker while he's driving, but the grace keeps any tiredness at bay. It can't do anything against the uneasiness that sits in the middle of his chest though. It cannot stop the impression that the phone is a weight like a stone in his pocket.

He puts the radio on low, glances again in the rearview mirror. The people in the cars behind and beside him do not seem particularly interested in him, and most of them speed past and disappear. It is a relief. There has been enough bloodshed and deaths of innocents already.

 

It's about an hour later when it happens. He is in the process of switching lanes, when a strange buzzing begins in his head. There is a pain behind his eyes, his ears are ringing. He barely has enough presence of mind to signal before he swings left to park the car haphazardly in the next parking bay. He gets the door open and manages to stand up, lean against the car with his hands pressed to his head while the ringing intensifies, then gradually dies down and after a few seconds fades away completely. He slumps against the car and takes a few ragged breaths, staring up at the stars. The stolen grace inside him doesn't feel different than before.

 

In his pocket, the phone starts to ring. **  
  
**

**5\. No, i could not do the things i did before (leave you waiting there by that open door)  
  
** Dean smiles at him when he sees him again, tenderness in his voice when he looks Castiel up and down, remarks on his new clothing. **  
**

It stands in stark contrast to the destroyed room, the weapons on the table, Dean's red-rimmed eyes, his tense shoulders. “Dean, what is wrong?”

 

It turns out that a lot is wrong.  
  
It's obvious in the way Dean keeps angling his gaze to the floor, in his broken-off sentences, that he is on the verge of either breaking or shutting down completely. There is not much that Castiel can do right now, except stay. So he stays.  
  
They're sitting in the foyer in the whatever-it-is building that Crowley has led them to. It is unnerving that he cannot hear what they are talking about. But when he reaches out, there is like a blind spot in his vision, his hearing, that repels any and all of his assaults to pierce through it. It might be that this grace he has now is simply too weak.  
  
Dean shifts beside him, then goes still again. Even around Castiel, he often has his walls up, pushing what he truly feels deep down inside. It's all the more painful to watch, for Dean feels so strongly and his feelings are complex, often frustratingly contradictory. Once, Castiel wouldn't have hesitated to bypass the protective walls and look straight into Dean's soul. _I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, your confusion_ , he had told Dean once.  
  
Dean has always had an aversion to both sympathy and praise. It is, perhaps, a failure on Castiel's part that the man he raised from perdition still doesn't believe himself worth saving.  
  
“When I called you from that pay phone after I fell,” Castiel says, and from the corners of his eyes he can see Dean turn his head to look at him, “there was one of my sisters in the parking lot. We didn't, uh, part on good terms.” He turns around and meets Dean's gaze. His green eyes are now clouded with confusion rather than pain. “Because I wanted to help my people, I made a terrible mistake. I cannot undo it but I can do my best to make it right.”  
  
Dean doesn't say anything but he nods once as if saying he understands, and then drops his gaze again. For a moment, they are both silent. Then, Dean huffs and says, “You know, with the way they treat you, sometimes I think your siblings really don't wanna be saved.”

  
Castiel has to smile at that, if sadly. “My siblings don't really know much about Earth, Dean. They don't understand.” After a pause, he adds, “If I had had more of a chance to speak to my sister, I would have told her that is isn't as bad as it looks for her now. That being here means... opportunity. That she can finally figure out what she wants for herself. That she can decide on where she wants to be.” He looks up, holds Dean's eyes with his own.

“The way I have.”

 

Dean looks at him for a long moment and then sighs and drops his gaze, turns his head away.

“Sometimes I think you make a way better human than me, buddy.”

 

Castiel frowns. “You know I'm not human anymore, Dean.”

 

Dean's jaw constricts and he stares down at his hands. “Yeah, I know.”  


  
He watches Dean walk through the rain, into the unlit street, follows him with his eyes until he's gone. Sam, meanwhile, is looking down, hunching his shoulders against the cold, and doesn't say anything. It is good to have him back, and it is horrible to let Dean walk away now. If being human has taught Castiel anything, it's that nothing feels quite as punishing as being alone.

 

He texts, **i will take care of Sam. please call us if you need help.**

 

Dean never answers, but he must have seen the message. Still, all over again it feels like sending his first own prayer out into the ether, all the while thinking that, while this is right, it might also be too late. **  
**

 

**  
  
6\. And if i could take the pain away (wash the stains away)**

 

His righteous man, the soul he raised from perdition, is kneeling in the dirt, surrounded by blood and shredded flesh.

 

The sight of him stops Castiel's momentum dead. Even his stolen grace cannot protect him from the agony that his heart sends out all through his body, as if all of him that is alive is protesting at what he sees.

 

“Dean?”  
  
Dean is kneeling, half of his face covered in blood from a head wound, his clothing soaked in the wendigo's blood. He appears to be looking down at his trembling, blood-covered hands in his lap, tightening them into fists and then opening them again, slowly, completely oblivious to Castiel's presence. He is frighteningly pale, his breath a barely-there rasp.

 

“Dean?”

 

He steps on something and it cracks underneath his foot and Dean whips around as if electrocuted, staring not at Castiel but at his feet, at the bone that crunched beneath them. He snarls, his eyes bright as if in fever and stumbles into something like a predatory crouch.

 

It gives Castiel no choice.

 

Faster than a human could see, he leaps forward and presses a hand against Dean's forehead. It takes an alarming amount of his power, and he can hear Dean cry out in pain even if there shouldn't be any, but then he drops, a dead weight at Castiel's feet, had he not reached out and gripped Dean's shoulders in the last moment.

Dean's weight drags him down, and when Sam crashes through the underbrush into the clearing, panting and with shock and worry painted on his face, the two of them hoist Dean up between each other and track through the woods and back to the car in heavy silence.

 

Back in the bunker, Sam refuses to leave his brother's side, but in the end relents when Castiel points out that, right now, they have no idea if Dean will be Dean when he wakes up, that he could very easily hurt Sam, and that it's the last thing anybody needs.

 

Sam, worried and distressed, stares through the half-open door to where his brother is lying on his bed, completely unmoving. “You don't think we should – should we move him to the dungeon? You know, just. Just in case?” It obviously pains him to say it, but there is resolution there as well. They will not let Dean hurt anyone, not even himself.

Castiel takes a breath, considers, but ultimately shakes his head. “No. We should wait. I think it might be – helpful, for him, to wake up here. As of now, I am still stronger than him. But I have hope that I won't have to be.”

 

Sam nods, looks away. His eyes are wet.

 

“We will get Dean through this, Sam.”

 

Sam nods, again, but he doesn't look at Castiel as he does it. He claps him on the shoulder, once, a gesture similar to and yet completely different from how Dean does it when he touches Castiel, and then walks away, his feet slow and his shoulders caving in.

 

Castiel walks back into Dean's room, closes the door, locks it, sits down on the stool facing the bed, and waits.

 

 

 

It's around four in the morning when Dean begins to move restlessly in his sleep.

His head is whipping from left to right on the pillow, his eyes under the lids moving frantically back and forth, and his hands tremble and clench as if fighting against invisible restrains. It's a risk, but Castiel can't help but move to the bed and grip Dean's shoulders carefully.

 

“Dean?”

 

Dean sucks in a breath, his features contorted as if in pain, but doesn't wake up. “ _No_ ,” he pleads, choked off and scraped raw as if he's been screaming for hours, “No, _please_.”

 

“Dean, you have to _wake up_.”

 

But Dean only tries in vain to twist away from him, his breathing uneven and too fast, trembling all over.

“No, please. _Please_. Get me out. _Let me go_!”

 

“Dean!”

 

He cups the side of Dean's face, but it is to no avail. Dean twists his head away, his hands fisted in the covers, tears trickling down his cheeks.

 

 

Dean wakes again, almost twelve hours later. He's blinking against the soft light of the bedside lamp for a few seconds and then sits up all in a rush, staring down at his hands in shock and confusion. He turns his head and freezes when he sees Castiel.

 

“What the hell happened?”

 

Dean's voice is scratchy and he sounds frightened. Castiel begins to explain but is stopped short when Dean asks him why he was in the dungeon.

 

“Dean, you never were in the dungeon.”  
  
He steps closer, confusion giving way to fear. Dean is slipping away again, right before his eyes, drowned and dragged down by the mark of darkness that is branded into his skin. He has to sit down and fist his hands into the bed sheet to keep himself from reaching out and trying, in vain, to burn it out of Dean's soul.

 

“Dean, we will get you through this. Whatever darkness you throw yourself into, _I will find you again_.”

 

But Dean only laughs, hollow and empty, and turns away from him.

 

 

 

Several long, painful minutes, he waits for Dean to turn around again, but nothing happens. His own throat is so closed up by then, it's doubtful he'd be physically able to say anything even if he knew any words. He gets up, his feet heavier than entire mountains, a pressure behind his eyes and in his entire skull, but right before the door clicks shut behind him, he hears the quiet sound of choked back tears.

 

He freezes and then moves back towards the bed, leaving the door open behind him, light spilling inside. Dean's back is a taut, tense line and he's unconscious again, but there are tear tracks down his cheeks.

 

He sits down beside Dean on the bed, leans his head against the wall, closes his eyes, and hopes.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: Titles inspired by the following music

1\. Moon – Foals  
2\. Milk & Black Spiders – Foals  
3\. Pink Rabbits – The National  
4\. All That Jazz – Echo and the Bunnymen  
5\. After Glow – Foals  
6\. Bad Habit – Foals

 

 


End file.
